28 November 2016

SHIPPING
lines globally spend up to eight per cent of their operating costs
on repositioning empty containers, which costs the shipping industry between
US$15 billion and $20 billion a year according to Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Speaking
at the Intermodal Europe event in Rotterdam, Johannes Schlingmeier, a
consultant at BCG, said the huge number of empty container movements across the
globe accounted for 15 per cent of all box movements in the US, 14 per cent in
Latin America, 29 per cent in Europe, 16 per cent in the Middle East and 25 per
cent in China.

Mr
Schlingmeier's colleague, Christian Roeloffs, told The
Loadstar that the problem arose from a mixture of structural trade imbalances
and liner and network inefficiency. "Against structural imbalances ?such
as those seen in an economy that exports more, China's, for instance little can
be done," he said.

"However,
our analysis shows that 33 per cent of repositioning costs arise from company
inefficiencies."

BCG
believes these issues can be addressed by increasing transparency between
container operators and shippers looking to transport goods through digital
interchange platforms.

These
platforms analyse markets to find empty units, vessel space and slots to link
shippers with goods to move to empty containers, and BCG analysis of its own
platform [xChange] shows that each interchange saves roughly $200, on average,
for both parties.

Mr
Roeloffs said: "Platforms like xChange link people looking for capacity to
people with empty containers, much like Airbnb. The goal of the platform is to
supply a mutually beneficial system that has the potential to save $20 million
a year."

Since
xChange was launched last year with 10 customers, a further 57 have come
onboard. Mr Schlingmeier believes that with container growth now falling below
GDP growth, the pressure will intensify on shipping lines to scale up and
improve efficiency.